1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of multiple window displays in computer systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to the field of extended windows library functions in a computer system. Although the described embodiment is described in terms of a computer conferencing system, the extended windows library functions can be used for various other types of computer applications which use multiple window displays.
2. Description of Related Art
A set of personal computers interconnected on a network can be effectively used as a data conferencing system. In such a system, each conference participant typically comprises a personal computer user having a computer, a screen display, a computer network interface and typically a mouse or cursor control device. Conference participants are linked together by a computer network. This network may comprise either a hardwired local area network (LAN) such as Ethernet, a telephone modem link or other conventional data communications network. Because the conference participants are linked via a computer network, the participants do not need to be located in the same physical space. Rather, an effective conference may be carried out as participants view common information on their local screen displays and manipulate information using their local cursor control devices or other input devices.
Several problems are present in these prior art conferencing systems. In a typical conferencing application, a group of conference participants linked via a network share common information pertaining to a particular meeting or topic under discussion. By sharing information between conference participants, each participant is able to view and manipulate the information dispersed during the meeting. Immediately after a meeting is initiated, a pool of information collected during the meeting begins to accumulate. As each conference participant makes modifications or additions to this pool of meeting information, the individual contributions must be circulated around to the other conference participants so that each participant has a complete and up-to-date copy of the meeting information. It will be appreciated that maintaining synchronization and currency of the meeting information among all conference participants is a difficult task and may involve the transfer of large amounts of information. This task is complicated by the fact that during the course of the meeting, individual conference participants may choose to create their own independent private pool of information that relates in some way to the meeting or topic under discussion. As is the case during a face-to-face meeting, some information is shared among the meeting participants and other information or notes are kept private to a particular participant.
In a typical conferencing scenario, an individual conference participant may take private notes that relate to the public subject matter under discussion at the conference. A split bar window display can be used to separate the computer display into two display windows: a first window for displaying the public information and a second window for displaying the private information.
A split bar displaying a descriptive title can be displayed along with the second window so that the user can easily differentiate the two windows. The user can then change the size ratio of the first window relative to the second window by moving this title bar which separates the windows. Thus, for example, by moving the title bar, the size of the first window can be increased with a corresponding decrease in the size of the second window. Any size ratio of the first window and second window can be created. However, if the first window is increased so as to fully encompass the display such that the second window is no longer displayed, this results in a screen configuration which can potentially cause confusion for the user. In this configuration, the display would show the first window above a title bar corresponding to the second window. Thus, a better method for displaying the title window is needed so as to reduce confusion for the user.
Additionally, tabs may be used to easily access previously-tagged information. This allows for easily skipping from one location in the dataset of an application to another location. Some limitations of the prior art are that the number of tabs was limited to a predetermined number.